Mary Henry (Independent)

I strongly recommend that people take up plan A or B because one pays a great deal of money for the hotel accommodation further on. A large amount of what people need is covered by the more minor plans which I hope people will take into account. It was extraordinary that children were insured under plans D and E when there was no private accommodation for them. People are being a bit flaithiúlacht with their money, although they have complained about the increases in costs. There have been large increases recently. The VHI's costs increased by 18% while those of BUPA increased by 14% but medical inflation is very expensive.

I am interested to hear the Minister say that while he has to make allowances for other insurers who might want to come into the market – they have to be given a three year exemption before they take on risk equalisation – no one else is trying at the moment. This is an area in which it must be very difficult to make money, although I am interested in the fact that the VHI has to produce its accounts every year. Perhaps I have simply failed to get them but I have been unable to find any accounts for BUPA Ireland. I believe that is because it comes under the BUPA UK body and is treated as a type of subsidiary. I would like to know how it is getting on because it is difficult to give an answer when people ask which is the better group to join. It is difficult to compare one scheme with another because they have all become so much more diverse. I wish there was some way we could examine BUPA's accounts but that does not seem to be possible.

It is important that we try to bring the problem regarding BUPA and the VHI and risk equalisation to a satisfactory conclusion, although I realise that is not the Minister's fault. I do not know who the director general is but matters appear to fall into a black pit and take forever to come out of it but we have to try to come out of it fairly rapidly because those of us who are in the VHI are subsidising those in BUPA, which is getting the younger customers, while the VHI, which is rightly an ongoing scheme and does not throw people out when they are old – Senator Glynn would agree we are all getting older—